I Promise
by SaturnineSunshine
Summary: "I promise I don't love you." An autobiography by Phillip Gallagher. If he ever took the time to sit down and write one. He had things to do, you know?


_I promise I don't love you._

The words were bubbling up inside him like hot acid. Words that had burned him in the past. He knew this feeling. This feeling had been chasing him since he was seventeen and he couldn't do it again.

Mandy liked it more on top than Karen ever did. It looked like every girl he fucked was branded _whore_ or _skank_. He knew what he was doing. Deep down, he really did know.

He didn't need Ian's knowing eyes or smartass remarks.

Karen had been his best friend and he had fucked that up. He told Ian everything but now Ian had Mickey. And Mandy.

And Mandy.

Mandy was still grabbing the headboard above him, her eyes clenched tight, her nose ring glinting from the light trying to get through the curtains.

_Karen, I don't love you._

That's what he had said. And ever since then he had been a royal mess of everything. He had never made a good decision after that.

Even now. Even this. It wasn't right. Because he hadn't done it for the right reasons.

And yet, he still felt it. The reason that he had irresponsible and meaningless sex with every girl he could get his hands on. Maybe if he made them hate themselves as much as he hated himself, he could get over it.

He wished he could just fucking get over it.

And yet, he felt it. He knew this feeling. It was this feeling of terror. He was falling without a net and he couldn't say those words again.

He said something else.

"Skank."

Hurt burned behind Mandy's eyes and for a moment, that made it all better. Now she felt as shitty as he did.

And then it was over.

Then it was just her hurting and him feeling shittier than the both of them combined.

It felt even worse when she socked him.

He had forgotten. Somehow, he had forgotten. This was a girl from the neighborhood and fuck him if he thought he was going to get away with treating her like shit.

Somehow, he couldn't understand that.

He had seen it before. Mandy's eyes swollen shut and pounds of makeup as she pretended nothing was wrong. How could she do that and then not take shit from him?

He supposed it was different. She could take punches better than she could take his verbal abuse.

Because she cared.

There came the terror again. He didn't like it. Feeling good again was not something he was prepared for. Feeling like for the first time he could be okay and have his heart kicked in the dirt.

The Milkovich's knew how to scrap. That was for sure. But even Mickey didn't put all his weight behind that beating. Lip could admit this with all certainty.

No one had given him a black eye like Mandy.

He couldn't be in whatever with Mandy Milkovich. That just wasn't going to cut it.

That was the decision he had made, however subconsciously. He had to stick with that. No matter the warning signs. No matter how many of her boyfriends came after him or how many black eyes and swollen faces it seemed like she was covering up.

No matter how many times he found himself saying, "you look good."

Maybe he hadn't noticed her at first because of that. Her face was scrubbed relatively clean and her hair pulled back in a professional twist. Or as professional as a waitress at a café could be.

She hadn't recognized him either. It was like they were looking at each other for the first time. And he was wearing a suit while she had on a waitress uniform.

He knew how pretentious these people were. He knew he would have beat the shit out of these kids if he could have in high school. But something was different. Was he changing too?

He found that looking at her now wasn't so scary as it had been before. Maybe he was fitting into that world. Maybe he was just like them now. He would go to frat parties with pointless traditions that never really made a different in anything.

If had he ad gone to MIT this wouldn't have been a problem.

Then again she had wanted him to take her with him, even when she had known that he wouldn't.

He wished he could follow her. He wished he could penetrate that barrier she had raised between them. She looked at him with unseeing eyes.

"Do you want some more coffee, sir?"

"I didn't know you worked here."

"I'll be with your table in just a minute."

She stuffed bills into her pocket and kept moving across the bar like he was a threatening force. All he wanted to do was talk to her but she wouldn't even look him in the eye.

It was all he wanted to do.

He said the only thing he could say. The only thing he knew how to do.

"You look great."

And it hurt her all the more.

"Do you want something else?"

"No, we're good."

She was slipping away from him and the terror set in.

_Thank you_. What else could he do?

This wasn't the fear of being loved. This was history repeating itself and he knew it. He might as well be in the Jackson basement again, half naked and confused. For being someone that was always told how smart they were, he was always so confused.

He might as well be holding her face between his hands and screaming _I promise I don't love you _for all the good it was doing him_._

It would have had the same effect as it did before.

Mandy bowed her head and backed through the double doors and into the kitchen.

Away from him.

This was it. This was the fear. And it had happened again. He didn't know how he let it happen when he had always been so guarded, but it just fucking did.

She had slipped away.

His fist was crushing empty air and he walked back in shiny shoes that were too big for him.

He hadn't done anything and he was still losing.

He hadn't even said it, and the acid still burned him.


End file.
